When I was running Vista pre SP1 it suffered from slow shell copy. For awhile I was using TeraCopy free versions including betas. After awhile I went to KillCopy

KillCopy is free. The UI is a bit quirky. I could never quite figure out if I was supposed to set an option in the "regular" version or the "network" version of the settings. So I just set them both the same. It did work afaict, more consistently than TeraCopy. I haven't tried the new 2.1 stable version of TeraCopy. Maybe they got the bugs out.

I just like Teracopy. I haven't used the other ones, so I can't compare. I also like the author, and his other software like Direct Folders, which is my favorite dialog utility. And $11 is as cheap as it gets for software, so i don't even think about that. Sometimes, you just want to support the guy. Sometimes, I feel the consumer community, including some of us here, are quick to criticize the developers just because they want to charge a little money for their software. I mean, I agree that sometimes the freeware is preferred over the shareware, but that doesn't mean the shareware is bad just because it costs more. Sometimes, they are both good, there's no need to put a negative spin on the shareware. The freeware guy is not necessarily a better person for not charging and vice versa.

And I don't disagree with you at all. It's just that I've been hearing and reading a lot lately about a sort of resentment for anybody that charges for software...subtle, not overly bashing them. Almost like, "How dare they charge me $20 for this!". I'm not saying you or this thread specifically. It's just a feeling I've been getting lately. I may be being overly sensitive to it. And many people expect to pay $20 for a program, and have that author wait hand and foot and do everything just like they are imagining. I'm not saying authors shouldn't be very responsive and friendly, but I can also understand if they take their time or are not so responsive to everyone's issues. I may be being overly sensitive...

@superboyac I have to agree with your last comments on the freeware/payware thing. If you do try to sell your software, the distributors try to suck all the profit out of the venture. As in most businesses I guess. I've submitted programs that are on lots of download sites, to particular download sites, that still haven't showed after years because I didn't pay the $250 vig.

It's just barriers to the individual trying to sell anything. Like needing a $500 license to sell $.05 Kool-aid on the corner. Forget it!! Got to have a big trust fund or a corporate pal. How else can you absorb these costs? Not on donations man.

That's why I chucked it and changed all my stuff to fully functional donation-ware. At least a few people will use some of my utilities that way.

@superboyac I have to agree with your last comments on the freeware/payware thing. If you do try to sell your software, the distributors try to suck all the profit out of the venture. As in most businesses I guess. I've submitted programs that are on lots of download sites, to particular download sites, that still haven't showed after years because I didn't pay the $250 vig.

It's just barriers to the individual trying to sell anything. Like needing a $500 license to sell $.05 Kool-aid on the corner. Forget it!! Got to have a big trust fund or a corporate pal. How else can you absorb these costs? Not on donations man.

That's why I chucked it and changed all my stuff to fully functional donation-ware. At least a few people will use some of my utilities that way.

I actually didn't know about all that. I didn't know you have to pay a fee to sell your software. That really sucks.

Up to $20, I don't even think about buying software. If some cool program is being sold for $5 or $15, I'll just get it. Even if I don't think I'll use it that much. I just really like well-made software. But when some little utility is being sold for $40, then I start hesitating and really thinking. Am I going to use it that much, is it worth it?

I think more of these software should be priced under $20 and it will make more people buy it who are hesitating or searching for freeware that does the same thing. But if it's like you are saying, then the authors are being forced to raise the prices. Or they keep them cheap, but they may be hard to find since it's not on those download sites.

Don't even get me started on those sites. The internet is becoming more and more unreliable as sites use these kinds of tricks to control what will and won't appear. Take me for example, I've been tricked all this time. I didn't know that the developers had to pay for their software to appear; I always thought these sites had some kind of crawler searching for software to appear in their lists.

I just had a long discussion with a friend of mine trying to make money by creating a website using SEO tactics. I was really annoyed and disappointed by it because he had written lots of articles for the sole purpose of SEO, but he didn't know what he was writing about. however, now if you search for something on Google, you will be led to these sites that use SEO written by people who are not experts at what they are doing. So, finding the correct information out there is getting harder and harder. It almost has to be by word of mouth...someone who knows telling you to go to this website. Anyway...off topic...

The frustrating thing is most discussion boards won't even let you put your url in your signature or even your profile as your home page, if you are trying to sell anything on the site. I'm not talking about spamming. It's annoying people posting just so they can say "btw, my software .. yadda yadda.." I mean just having the url anywhere. It's like you are Beelzebub if you try to get a dime for your effort.

Anyway, afa the topic goes, I've used various versions of TeraCopy and have several times considered buying it... but I sort of kept waiting for different issues in the betas to be resolved. Then when I got a PC with Vista64 SP1 I found the shell copy works fine and I don't really have a need for it. I put W7 on the offending machine that had pre SP1 Vista. So it's not something that would have a lot of benefit for me. I don't even bother with KillCopy now.

Mostly I recommend the stuff on the hotkeys page. To be honest, some of the initial Explorer utilities were poorly designed. I learned from my mistakes and went with a pop up on top type hotkey window instead of an open all the time utility.

I left most of the initial programs up because it doesn't cost me anything and there may be a few people who prefer that style.

btw can anyone tell me if the 2.12 Pro version still has that AutoMinimize behavior on the 2nd instance where you have to hit the Start Now button before the timer runs down?(There doesn't seem to be a full featured Trial Version of Pro. If you click download instead of buy you get the free version. No way to know exactly what you are going to get if you pay.)

I'm having trouble finding a 64 bit free Windows file manager that can multi-task. I thought I'd try the approach of using a 64 bit file copy utility to offload the copy operation avoiding file manager freeze with multi-GB files. Turns out there aren't many of those for free either. Many have some quirk that makes them unusable. For example, one pops up a status dialog in the corner near the task tray. You can move it, but when it opens again, it's right back to where you didn't want it. Stuff like that just makes the utility unusable for me.

It's like them mail-in rebates where I forget the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explainin' what each when wuz when they tell me they're not gonna' send the check.

edit: but so far it looks like the free one will do what I need. If I could get it for $11 that would but I'm only going to use it to copy GB files out of a file manager that doesn't multi-task. Explorer copy on Vista64 is actually pretty much the same afa transfer speed for my usage.

After trying this a bit more I see how he is working the Auto Minimize. For some reason I thought it required manual intervention to start the next operation. Works fine the way it is. The minimized instances will execute in order. Perfect for my usage with Q-Dir.

btw since I mentioned KillCopy, I found the fix for the Start Menu shortcuts for "network" and "normal" configuration, for 64 bit Windows. If you substitute SysWow64 for System32 in the shortcuts, they will work.

One nice way to use KillCopy is in throttled mode. Say you want to copy a large file over the Lan in the background without hobbling your PC. It has a slider for % of bandwidth etc.. While the copy is going on, if you want to revert to 100% or make other adjustments, there's a Settings Button on the copy window. The Settings has 3 ways to close.. Cancel, Ok, and Save as default.. this makes it convenient to speed up a copy to get it done without changing your default throttle setting. I use KillCopy for throttled copy and TeraCopy or Explorer drag & drop for full speed.

Many of the skins have non-English text but the Standard skin that's always available is in English. There are several others that can be downloaded from the site with English text.